Association for Middle Level Education

Browse by Topic:Diversity and Social Equity

Effective ways to enhance reading and writing experiences.

Recently, I was teaching a language arts class in Logan, West Virginia. The objective of the lesson was to analyze the impact of tradition on human behavior using narrative text. Sounds really dull, doesn't it? It...

Films can—and should—be more than time-killers in your classroom.

We all know the stereotypical image of the teacher who, tired of direct instruction, dims the lights, turns on the DVD player, and sits quietly while students stare at the screen. The problem here is not that students...

Graffiti murals promote comprehension and student voice.

Some see graffiti as vandalism; others see it as a work of art. Urban artists use graffiti to send political messages—as a form of meaning making in the larger society. Indiana University Professor David Hanauer...

Exploring the five plagues of complex text.

One of the most important aspects of teaching literacy in the classroom is text selection, the process by which teachers choose what their students will read.
For many teachers, text selection boils down to choosing...

Meeting new science standards can be hard for students who struggle with reading and writing.

How do you teach the new science standards to students who struggle with reading and writing? Many middle school science teachers face this dilemma, which is especially challenging for science educators at my school....

A student-produced magazine celebrates middle level student voice.

In October 2015, a team of seven editors—all eighth grade boys at St. Christopher's School in Richmond, Virginia—met during lunch to compare two digital publishing platforms. They judged entries for the...

Turning negative perceptions into positive outlooks.

Common Core State Standards require that students read at complex levels. Guiding students through these increasingly complex materials can be daunting for teachers of mixed ability students, special education...

An old-fashioned radio broadcast encourages deeper reading.

Connections between students, connections between texts and students, and connections between texts and the real world are vital to student learning. In classrooms, one way to make connections is by linking people,...

Using leveled text across the curriculum helps every teacher be a literacy teacher.

Teachers at all levels and in all content areas are faced with the challenge of supporting students with reading challenges and raising test scores. Every classroom can have students on three or more different reading...